Thursday, March 22, 2012

I was a little skeptical a couple years ago when Deaner announced he wanted to spend $500 on equipment to become a SkyTv satellite dish owner. Over the years I could have taken the satellite options or left them. It is nice to be able to watch a show in HD and not the hideous broadcast quality of AFN but I certainly wouldn't die without it. In the past couple of weeks Evans has made it very clear that he actually WOULD die without it. In particular, the channel bizarrely called "CBeeBies". I am not thrilled with his love for television but by late afternoon on most days, I'm just too tired to argue when he brings me the remote and instructs me to "teeeeeeeeeee". Several times I have heard him belly laughing from the kitchen but I never knew what he was laughing at. Finally a couple days ago I caught him in the act and discovered that the source of his delight was actually a show called Baby Jake. Just that. Baby Jake. A cartoon baby, that speaks in gibberish and has a real live human head. I think I managed to catch a pretty good shot of Baby Jake. I don't know what it is about him that cracks Evans up but he laughs and laughs at Baby Jake bouncing around with his big ole real head. My close friends will know that I cannot stand it when cartoons are mixed with real life so it is only appropriate that my son would choose this show as his favorite. I shudder at the thought of Roger Rabbit. However let me give you some of the CBeeBies alternatives. There is a solid chance you will not believe me. When walking through the den at some point this week I happened to glance at the television to see a puppet-like mouse, conversing in a Jamaican accent wearing a Rastafarian looking hat thingie. My mind kept drifting back to this thinking that I had to have been mistaken because surely there wasn't a Rastafarian talking mouse on a children's television show. Only.......there was......Bet you didn't believe me, did you? Go ahead, google it, I couldn't make this up. The other shows I have caught glimpses of are ZingZillasWhich is clearly a band of characters that could have only been conceived by someone tripping on acid. Just look at them and try and disagree with me. Next up, TweeniesApparently Bella, Milo, Fizz, Jake (clearly a popular name right now) and their dog "Doodles" have been "busting up the charts" for the past 13 years. At least these kids are always at school but I cannot imagine that they were not another drug addled conception. Lastly, a show called Everything's RosieI don't know what it is about but I could sing you the theme song. Which is currently stuck in my head. I'm digging her hair. So all in all, I'm thinking that Baby Jake and his babble are looking pretty educational. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there is a night time show too with a blue thing that looks like Gumby but it's name is "Iggle Piggle" and at night, he drinks "Pingy-pongy juice". I'd like some people to weigh in with their thoughts on these TV shows. Is this just the way shows are these days or are the Brits losing their minds??

On another subject, Evans has learned this really awesome new trick. It only happens when I am not watching and completely unsuspecting. It's a pretty simple idea really. If you want to play along all you would have to do is fill up your mouth with apple juice from your sippy cup and silently spit it out down the front of your shirt and onto your pants. Repeat until you are completely soaking wet and your owner wants to have a nervous breakdown. I've hollered at him and told him "no", I have spanked his little hand and taken the juice away but I can't keep him from having liquids all the time and it only happens when I am unprepared. I've never accused Evans of being a complicated child but this has me stumped.

Off to finish packing for our weekend get-a-way. Since there are two very distinct and different possibilities for the way that our weekend could go, I'll keep y'all posted. For now, happy early start to the weekend!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Our German pediatrician would be a goner. We had Evans' 18 month check up this morning (a month late) and all is well. The only problem we encountered was getting out of the house and there on time. Why do I keep scheduling 9am appointments? I thought about it the whole way there and of course when they told me I had to come back in two weeks for one last shot they offered me a 9am appointment and I happily accepted it! What is wrong with me? Anyways, Evans, who used to be quite charming at the doctor's office, acted like everyone was out to kill him. He cried and cried when the nurse had to MEASURE him. You might have thought he had been shot when she had to take his head circumference. Every time our nice doctor would say something to him Evans would cut his eyes at him and scowl. He was delightful and I was not embarrassed at all. It's amazing how his face can go from sweet to evil in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately his new favorite accessory happens to be my Michael Kors sunglasses. He is going to have to get his own sunglasses immediately so there are no unfortunate accidents.

Besides the shot in the leg this morning, things in Germany are going well. It has been sunny almost every day and has even gotten to almost 70 degrees. We have been taking advantage of outside time and I tell a difference in Evans' sleeping at night. While we are probably tempting fate we are heading out of town on Friday. A stop in Rothenberg on the way to Garmisch for a long weekend, an overnight stay back at home and then off to Brussels next week for Deaner's work. There is nothing that can disturb a sleep routine like a week and a half in a pack 'n play in a hotel. I hope it goes smoothly or we might be bound to Germany for awhile.

In other random musings I thought I would mention that Deaner came home one day last week with a little TV for our kitchen. We all know how Evans liked to watch Dinosaur Train while eating breakfast and Deaner was way proud of his $20 thrift store find. He was even more proud when he found a Lady and the Tramp DVD already in the DVD player. It quickly became painfully obvious as to why the TV was such a steal. The ONLY function it can perform is to play the Lady and the Tramp DVD. That's it. Every time you turn it on, Lady and the Tramp is what you get. I think I have now seen TATT more times than I have heard Toy Story 3 playing in the car. If anyone else is familiar with the movie I have a few observations/questions. First, Jim Dear and Darling are obnoxiously sweet to each other. It annoys me. 2. Jim Dear is so excited to have a baby boy but then he allows Darling to keep him in a cradle covered in pink bows. Manly. 3. Those siamese cats are bad news. 'Nuff said.

Off Topic - why must Evans continue to come into the kitchen and throw all my decorative dish towels on the floor, stomp on top of them, while cackling with laughter?Maybe the better question is why do I continue to pick them up, hang them back up and hope for better......Happy Wednesday!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

At any given time there is a very good chance that I am currently obsessed with a particular project or fad. Those who know me can remember some of these obsessions such as painting our entire house when we moved in several years ago, decorating Evans' nursery with insane attention to detail, collecting a number of different things where I can't rest until I have every last one of those "somethings". It's pretty much my nature to have something going at all times that I can pour my extra attention into. While my current grand idea is redecorating a play room for Evans (mainly to get all the toys out of my den) sometimes my tastes exceed my budget and things must be put on hold (I'm also not sure where I am going to get a ladder that tall). Instead of working on my grand plan I've had to focus my attention elsewhere and I'm pretty sure our water faucets are paying the price. While I know this is a very strange thing to be obsessed with, I cannot stop scouring our water fixtures that have become disgusto due to our hard water problem in Germany. It's like I woke up yesterday morning and could not stand the thought of touching the faucet again until I had a solution. After an afternoon with Google I had a game plan and found myself up at nearly midnight last night mixing up mixtures to tackle this problem I could no longer stand to live with. Let's just say that I was up this morning with raw hands and went immediately to the base for back up. As of right now, my hands are a disaster and I'm scared to touch Evans' bare skin but I'm finally seeing results. I don't think that the calcium deposits and lime build up can stand one more night of my wrath. My kitchen sink looks brand new as well so I think I will rope it off and not let anyone ever use it again. It's a good thing that Deaner is out of town. Think this could be a problem? At least baking soda and white vinegar are cheap! Wish I had before and after pictures but the obsession came on so quickly that I didn't think to take a picture of my disgusting shower fixture. Instead I can offer a picture of Evans' current obsession. I actually got it off his head long enough today to wash it. And no, he is not ALWAYS sitting in his high chair but it is the only time I think about taking a picture. Happy Tuesday!

Friday, March 16, 2012

When is it acceptable to have a drink at 10:00 in the morning? How about 1:30 in the afternoon? I'll tell y'all a little bit about how my day has gone and then we can have a discussion regarding early happy hours rules. Sometime in the last couple of days Deaner and I discovered that my military ID was going to expire next week and since he is about to be out of the office for the next two weeks in a row, it was essential that I get a new one before he leaves. Things would get really interesting around here if he went out of town for that long and I was not allowed to go on the base for anything. Of course we left it for the last possible day so Evans and I were rushing to get out of the house this morning to meet Deaner at the ID office. Let me preface the beginning of this story by saying that yesterday was a great day. Is was sunny and warm and we had a really fun dinner out in a small winery with ten other friends AND our child was perfectly behaved. So I woke up this morning on the right side of the bed, happy to see the sun again and ready for a repeat of the day. Sometimes I can be so dumb.

The procuring of the ID turned out to be way easier than expected. If I had only accepted Deaner's lunch invitation instead of saying we needed to keep on with our errands, the day might be going completely different. In the following sequence of events I managed to back out of my parking space, while listening to Evans scream bloody murder, directly into a Mercedes that was just chillin' in my blind spot. Not just a little love tap either. There is definitely damage to both cars. The military police had to be called and we had to wait on them to come for 30 minutes. Deaner was with me but had another meeting to go to so he left me waiting. Evans was watching his DVD and was fine so it was no big deal. Until the battery in my car died. All of this happened once the ass clown military cops showed up. Evans was hollering because the DVD player wasn't playing, I'm freaking out because what the hell am I going to do with a dead car and to top it off, they told me that I was going to have to come give a written statement at the station which might take 2.5 hours because they were "a little understaffed today". I just stood there staring at them. Clearly something in my look registered with them because I was then allowed to give my statement on the spot. Well, it was either the look or the pitch of Evans' wailing.

Statements given, a ticket rewarded to me, Deaner comes back to give my car a jump, a little crying spell and we were off to the commissary. Before jumping to the thought that I should have gone home at that moment and called it a day I should say that it was necessary to go. I knew it was a bad sign when Evans started crying the second we walked through the doors. He refused to sit in the cart so I was forced to hold him in one arm and push the cart with the other. Then I had to hold him with one arm, a package of goldfish for him to munch on in the other hand and push the cart with my stomach. All while carrying on like I was beating him. Oh yeah, I also lost the grocery list. In my haste to exit quickly I grabbed a frozen pizza out of the freezer section only to start an avalanche of about fifteen pizzas cascading onto the floor. I was over it. We paid and left and I have really no idea what we bought. I also don't care. Evans fell asleep in the car about ten minutes from home and now refuses to take a nap despite being exhausted.

Now can we discuss the merits of day drinking? Any thoughts? Happy weekend to everyone!

Monday, March 5, 2012

I know I don't normally use the words "alive" and "well" in the same sentence but this week they happen to both be true! Evans and I are both back to 100% and have made the trek across the ocean. A ten hour flight with an 18 month old was daunting at best but once again, Evans surprised me with his awesome behavior. We were lucky enough to get two seats together so I was able to block him in against the window. The only minor hiccup we had was that Evans cried/screamed for about 20 minutes before falling asleep for the rest of the flight. While in hindsight, this was no big deal when I think about what could have possibly been, it is totally unnerving to have a screaming child when you are trapped inside the cabin in an airplane. You can almost feel the glares and hear the thoughts of other passengers as they wish you evil things hoping that you don't come anywhere near them. Thankfully it didn't last long and it was nothing that a little Curious George didn't cure. We were the first stroller off the plane, there were no other flights at customs and our luggage was already on the belt at baggage claim. I doubt that I need to point out that this is not what normally happens to us. As another stroke of massive luck an airport employee offered to help me push my cart in perfect English! I did not expect to find an American wearing his security badges on a Nascar string but I was grateful none the less. Deaner was waiting for us outside of security and the rest was free sailing! Evans and I both got to take a 4 hour nap and it was the best that I have ever done with jet lag on this side of the ocean. Evans had some issues but we are all back to normal now. In fact, I don't want to jinx myself but Evans has been sleeping great and last night logged 14 hours! Probably all the running around we have been doing. Since we have been back we have been meeting Deaner for lunch during the week. Evans fit right in at the Brauhaus Kastel.He even preferred the German menu over the English. We have spent a lot of time down by the river just letting him run around. Of course this could get old once spring fully arrives and it is somewhat crowded down here.We wave and say "bye bye" to every plane that flies overhead.We have attempted to play tee ball. I thought this would be a great idea if Evans loved it because he could hit the ball, go pick it up himself and do it again. Not exactly how it happened and it's become almost glaringly clear that he is a lefty despite how I was trying to teach him.Sometimes the ground down at the wine stand can be a little uneven and E is still getting used to that. I wish this picture wasn't blurry because it makes me laugh.It also makes me laugh that Evans wants to wear this hat no matter where we go no matter if we are in the warm indoors. He takes it off occasionally and doesn't know how to put it back on which causes me to hear "mama mama mama mama mama" until I let him wear it again.And lastly Evans has greatly enjoyed the luxury of having a DVD player in the car. For the child that loves TV what could be better than getting to watch it every time we get into the car? Personally, I'm about to break the Toy Story 3 DVD because I am so sick of hearing it without seeing a picture. I think we might practice with the headphones soon.Will I ever get to listen to anything I want to again? Doubtful. All and all it has been a pretty good first week and a half back. I haven't been on the computer much it takes a lot to keep Evans on one floor at our house. We have gates galore but there is one weak link and I'm pretty sure he routinely uses it. The blockade of toys lasted about a week but now he is on me. I will try and post again when I have something fun to say. We have a lot of traveling coming up and that could either be great or a disaster. You just never know! Happy Monday.......